VW, BMW and Mercedes to pay in to £4.4b fund to RETROFIT diesel emission technology?

Reports from Germany say the German Government want German car makers to pay in to a £4.4 billion fund to retrofit emission control technology to older diesel cars.

The German car industry has thrived on the back of diesel-engined cars, but Volkswagen upset the apple cart nearly three years ago when it was found out to be scamming emissions testing in what has become known as the Dieselgate scam.

The Dieselgate mess has cost VW tens of billions in penalties, buy-backs and modifications to cars in Europe fitted with defeat devices, but the after-shock of the mess is now really starting to bite across the car industry, with buyers deserting diesel-engined cars in droves and cities proposing bans on all but the most recent Euro 6 compliant diesels.

Even in Germany, local authorities have been given permission to ban older diesel cars from their roads, which could mean more than 12 million cars in Germany facing restrictions on where they can drive. But it seems the German government has a plan up its sleeve.

According to Der Spiegel, the German government is planning to demand that German car makers (which essentially means VW Group, BMW and Mercedes) pay in to a €5 billion fund to retrofit new emissions control to older diesel cars.

That would mean more than 80 per cent of the 15 million diesel cars on German roads getting retrofitted with Selective Catalytic Reduction systems which use Adblue injection to eliminate most of the NOx coming out of the tail pipe.

According to Der Spiegel, the German government will address the issue next week, and it’s a plan which, on the face of it, seems to be a pragmatic way to improve air quality without actually scrapping otherwise perfectly good cars.

But will a fund of £4.4 billion be enough to retrofit new emissions controls to 12.3 million cars?